Disability Benefits ‘Could Be Taxed’ To Fund Higher Payments For The Poorest Claimants

Disability benefits ‘could be taxed’ in order to fund higher payments for the poorest claimants, it has been reported today.

Under proposals being considered by the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith MP, higher-income disabled people in receipt of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) would subsidise increased payments for the poorest claimants, through the introduction of a new tax on their benefit.

PIP, like its predecessor, can be claimed regardless of a person’s employment status or income. PIP claimants can currently receive anything between £21.55 and £138.05 each week, dependent upon a claimant’s disability and care needs.

PIP was rolled out in April 2013 and is replacing Disability Living Allowance (PIP) for all disabled people.

A senior government source told the Times on Sunday: “It cannot be right that those on the lowest incomes get the same disability benefits as those who are millionaires.

“It would be fair to tax the benefits so those on higher incomes, many of whom don’t need the money nearly as much, would pay at the same rate as income tax.”

Iain Duncan Smith is said to be interested in the proposal but no formal announcement has yet been made.

7 COMMENTS

Disability Living Allowance was introduced in recognition of the extra cost of living with a significant impairment. It took into account the social aspects of having to address disabling barriers. PIP, on the other hand, was introduced for ideological and political reasons and focuses on measuring dysfunction of the body as a means of determining ‘need. PIP methodology is based upon a mixture of the Unum corrupted version of the WHO’s bio-psycho-social model and crude reductionism associated with drawing contours around degrees of abnormality. Taxing PIP purely upon income without a proper assessment of an individual’s extra costs in real terms is, in my opinion, is further proof of this government’s rejection of the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons no matter what they may claim publicly. I accuse Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP of the practice of institutional discrimination against disabled people.

This is not about saving money – disabled millionaires are thin on the ground. Nor is it about helping the poorest disabled people, who will get little from it. It is just another attempt to snuff out an important founding principle of the welfare state: – that it is Universal and benefits everyone, rich or poor, alike.